Having been over COIN with a fine tooth comb for years, my entries on Kilcullen, Mullen, Petraeus, McChrystal, Allen and their ilk, up and down the chain of command (including their bunkum-swami, Greg "Three Cups" Mortenson), are quite voluminous. I find no Mattis, however. This is a little curious, given his shared role with Petraeus in "catalyzing" the bankrupt COIN doctrine and manual, not to mention his allure for COIN-happy Bill Kristol, who tried and failed to energize an anti-Trump presidential groundswell for Mattis last spring.

Speaking of Petraeus and Mattis -- "the two general officers who catalyzed the new [COIN] doctrine" -- behold Marine Lt . Col. Matt Baker (commanding officer of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment), practicing a highly catalyzed form of COIN in Nawa, Afghanistan, in late 2009:

It is hard to decide whether Ronald Radosh is more incompetent than liar; or more liar than incompetent. What marries the two, however, is a malicious intent to deceive so maybe it hardly matters.

Take the latest Radosh mess, or, to use the term a la mode, his latest installment of "fake news" aimed at Trump senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon. I refer to Radosh's increasingly non-credible story that Bannon came up to him at a "book party" at the Breitbart Embassy, which doubles as Steve Bannon's home, and, unsolicited, revealed himself to Radosh to be a "Leninist."

Radosh has now pegged this alleged incident to three different dates -- surely evidence of incompetence ... but then there are all the lies.

When I decided to address you here today, by making a final statement in this trial against freedom of speech, many people reacted by telling me it is useless. That you, the court, have already written the sentencing verdict a while ago. That everything indicates that you have already convicted me. And perhaps that is true. Nevertheless, here I am. Because I never give up. And I have a message for you and The Netherlands.

For centuries, the Netherlands are a symbol of freedom.

Who one says Netherlands, one says freedom. And that is also true, perhaps especially, for those who have a different opinion than the establishment, the opposition.

In a well-researched story with links to key documents, Morgan Chalfont of the Washington Free Beacon reports that the Pentagon officials hired and paid by US taxpayers to find US servicemen still missing and unaccounted for from the wars of the 20th century, including World War II, told their Russian counterparts in May of this year that there was "no evidence" that US troops missing in the Korean War had been taken to the Soviet Union.